Roskilde Festival: The 405 Review

"Magic" is something I've found myself writing a lot here, but there's a reason for it.

Roskilde Festival is more than just a festival. It's sounds like a cliche, but here that statement rings true because, when everyone has set up their tents and got to necking a year's supply of beer in one week, Roskilde becomes the fourth-largest "city" in Denmark with a population density somewhere close to Shanghai.

It's not just about the numbers either. There's a community feeling here that's unlike any other, something the organisers call "the orange feeling". With proceedings kicking off long before the music does, campers are pretty much left to their own devices. Set up a massive sound system and start your own party? Sure. Build your own bar and try make it the destination of the week? Go for it. It's all about ingenuity for those first few days, as strangers become friends and rows of tents become their own little camps.

It's something you experience a lot throughout the festival site; from the campers waving the flags for their camps to the focus on social responsibility with talks and workshops from Amnesty International and Black Lives Matter right down to the ecologically friendly ways to have a wee. Roskilde is more than just a festival. It's the most exciting temporary city around (unless you are vegetarian or vegan then everything but the food is exciting).

With a line up like Roskilde's, it's hard not to get excited too. The opening Wednesday was a bit hit and miss, with a technically proficient Warpaint playing a surprisingly somber setlist and The Weeknd in mega sleaze mode as he thrust through tracks from Beauty Behind The Madness. The latter is more of a personal issue, as someone who fell in love with his trilogy of mixtapes, but the crowd lapped up every second of his set so it clearly wasn't a setlist designed for me.

The day's highlight came in the form of Marching Church, Elias Rønnenfelt's side project, which oozed with the cool of Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds (the same cool later brought to the Orange Stage by Danish legends The Savage Rose on Thursday) and brooded with the melancholy of Joy Division. French electro duo Justice put in a hell of a performance to close the day, but the overwhelming (and often unnecessary) repetitive "thud thud" tacked on to some of the classics drowned out the playfulness that made them so special.

The party truly kicked off on Thursday, a day that began with the next big thing in pop and ended with a hip-hop legend, via a Solange detour. Sigrid is the type of popstar that, even at lunch time, can command a hefty crowd. With bangers galore, including that Katy Perry-beating juggernaut 'Don't Kill My Vibe', it's hard not to make comparisons to Lorde. It's even harder not to when the entire crowd falls silent for the beautiful 'Dynamite', a rare feat at any festival slot never mind an early one.

Likewise, Solange drew a crowd which, not only filled the tent but spilled out onto the grass and concrete outside, pulled in by her magnetic performance. Providing an emotional experience for many, especially one girl by the stage who received a hug from Solange, the likes of 'FUBU' and 'Cranes In The Sky' truly soar. Even classics like 'T.O.N.Y.' and 'Losing You' sparkle with a beautiful magic. A magic similarly spun by The xx, who pull out a tight set despite the threats of rain. The unleashing of Jamie xx, who may or may not have been doing his taxes in his little box at the back of the stage, has leant their older songs a new found enchantment that is intoxicating.

At the wilder end of the spectrum, Clams Casino and Gucci Mane proved the perfect juxtaposition for the state of rap today; one a producer knocking out his clever, moody trap beats that have served the likes of A$AP Rocky and Danny Brown with aplomb, the other a rapper who, on his first time ever in Europe, brought the kind of throwaway party anthems that bring people to roll blunts the size of their forearm (genuinely true story).

But it's headliner Nas that proves the true legends of rap are legends for a reason. From start to finish, his set is an adrenaline rush. From 'N.Y. State of Mind' to 'It Ain't Hard To Tell', complete with a tribute to Michael Jackson and 'Human Nature', everything is as impressively tight as you'd expect from someone who produced one of the greatest hip-hop albums of all time.

Friday brought with it rain and lots of it. By lunchtime, much of the site was a quagmire, with planks of wood nicked from who knows where acting as makeshift bridges over the muddy abysses. You go to festivals abroad to avoid this sort of thing, dammit!

But it wasn't enough to stop the good vibes of frequent Chance The Rapper collaborator (and creator of one of the best albums of 2016, never mind best mixtape) Noname. Undeterred by the rain, although seemingly a little nervous, she rockets through her trademark sun-dappled tracks from 'Diddy Bop' and 'Reality Check'.

Similarly Seun Kuti & Egypt 80, channelling the spirit of his father The Black President Fela Kuti, made dancing in the mud a must. While he might not have the political fire that Fela did, and despite the almost wasted appearance by Yasiin Bey, Seun Kuti is still capable of bringing the vibes that made dancing in the mud a must.

The day also brought not one but two appearances by the Copenhagen Philharmonic Orchestra. The first, playing something of a mixtape of classical hits (opening strong with Gustav Holt's Mars), sees the players not on the stage but spread around the tent. Being able to stand amongst the orchestra was an experience unlike any other.

The second is with Father John Misty's usual endearingly sleazy self. The addition of the CPO adds a real lushness to everything from 'Ballad Of The Dying Man' to 'Strange Encounters'. Surprisingly not one for chat here, FJM croons, thrusts and lusts through a setlist packed with self-aware, self-indulgent yet totally beautiful and captivating tunes.

The mud might've stopped us reaching Kano, but in retrospect, we wished it had stopped us reaching Foo Fighters instead. While the opening salvo of hits, from 'Learn To Fly' to 'The Pretender', delivered, everything seemed to go on. Grohl et al played each song as though it was the last, with extended outros that felt longer than the songs themselves. The set seemed to drag on and became an exercise in tedium; a severe case of just shut up and play the hits.

Boredom was not a word you'd band around Lorde, however. The New Zealand superstar brought a performance to remember. Though working on a stripped back stage, she commanded that entire tent's attention with ease. Jokingly announcing that she was a witch, responsible for the rain stopping, it's easy to wonder whether that was the only spell she cast that night. 'Royals' and 'Tennis Courts' went down a storm, while most recent banger 'Green Light' did exactly that: bang.

Lorde's rain magic lasted right through into Saturday too, with the sun even making an appearance. And there couldn't have been a better day for it with Ice Cube and Arcade Fire in truly fine form out in the sunshine. The former's comedy chops see him making a FJM-esque early entrance, only teased back on stage by chanting "Fuck you Ice Cube". NWA's greatest hits still sound as fresh and exciting as they used to, while Ice Cube's own back catalogue is a fun nostalgia trip. The latter's set is packed with energy, tapping into every single Arcade Fire era with plenty of new material along the way. Screaming along to 'Rebellion (Lies)' and 'Wake Up' is still as exhilarating as ever, while 'Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)' sees Regine Chassagne prove why she is the lynchpin of that group.

Earlier in the day, Jenny Hval brought her brand of challenging yet never boring performance theatre to the festival. It's fascinating to watch even if, like a good episode of Twin Peaks, you have absolutely no idea what's going. Dancers take selfies with the audience while Hval enraptures the crowd in her off-kilter pop. It's beautiful, it's funny and it's hard not to be charmed by it.

Shoegaze legends Slowdive, meanwhile, are pretty much at the opposite end of the spectrum: straight to the point, delivering sonically powerful and exciting tunes the rattle your very bones. 'Souvlaki Space Station' and 'Star Roving' are two real highlights, showing that 20 years later the Reading quintet still have that fire.

And that's the beauty of Roskilde. You can go from arty weirdness to shoegaze to classic hip-hop like it's nothing, soaking up the community atmosphere along the way. "Magic" is something I've found myself writing a lot here, but there's a reason for it. It might not have the Mediterranean climate of Primavera. It might not have the legacy of Glastonbury. But what it does have is that magic, that Orange Feeling, and it's something everyone needs to experience at least once.